User:Siobhanlryan

Libraries and Commercial Fishing

As the Emerging Leader from possibly the smallest community, an island off the coast of Maine with a year-round population of 350, being chosen as an Emerging Leader was important to our project. Currently, we are just getting the libraries on Swan's Island and Frenchboro caught up with the times. We have just started a linked catalog project between three libraries, all of which had very little cataloging done to begin with. And now, we are just rolling with what comes.

My position is funded by an outside organization that places recent advanced degree graduates on Maine's Outer Islands. The Island Instituteis a not for profit based in Rockland, ME that is dedicated to serving the peoples, communities, and environment in the Gulf of Maine. One program they have is the Fellowship Program, which places young folks on islands to work on community directed projects. And that is how I got here...

The libraries are funded publically, but with communties of 50 and 350 people, there isn't much money to go around, so sometimes to raise a little extra cash for the libraries I go stern on lobster boats. This activity is really only occasionally - as I don't like winter fishing or fishing outside. But on a nice summer morning at 4 a.m. it is nice to be out hauling.